Bruins Not Planning Any Side Trips During Washington Series Like Last Year’s Lake Placid Retreat

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Apr 10, 2012

WILMINGTON, Mass. — The Bruins hope to repeat their run from last spring and retain the Cup for another year, but they won't be trying to replicate every moment from that unique adventure.

So even with an extra day off between Games 3 and 4 in Washington of their opening-round series with the Capitals, the Bruins won't be making any side trips to get away from the city.

Last year, the Bruins took advantage of an extra day between games in Montreal to get away from the intense glare of the spotlight in that city and traveled over to Lake Placid. The quiet of that sleepy upper-state New York hamlet and the echoes of history from the U.S. Olympic Team's Miracle on Ice in 1980 provided the Bruins with some added inspiration and a chance for more team bonding. The excursion was seen as a key point in their run to the Cup.

But the atmosphere in Montreal last year was far different from what the Bruins expect to encounter in the nation's capital, making such a getaway this season unnecessary.

"I think the one thing you have to look at when it came to that is with the rivalry of Montreal-Boston, it was best for us for those two days to find a place where we could relax," Bruins coach Claude Julien said after Tuesday's practice at Ristuccia Arena. "Montreal is such a big hockey city where that's basically the main sport. They live and die with it. So for us it was important [to get away from that]. And that was a great occasion because Lake Placid was close enough to get there."

Julien and the Bruins are trying to use the experience and confidence gained from last year's championship to help propel them to another deep postseason run, but following the blueprint from 2011 in every detail isn't their intention. Instead, they hope to make new memories and history of their own this spring.

"In my mind you don't always have to repeat the same things," Julien said. "I'm not a believer of, 'Let's do the exact same thing as last year’ because this year is a different year. It's a different team. It's not the same players. We've got a lot of the same players, but it's not the same players. So I don't think duplicating what happened last year is going to make us a better team or give us a better chance of winning. We've just got to live in the moment here and recreate it in our own way what we have to do here."

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